Currently two common styles of massage rollers for stretching and massaging a user's legs and other areas of their body are used. Foam rollers as shown in FIGS. 15 and 16 are solid or hollow cylinders of foam or other materials that roll against the ground while the user lies on top of the roller in various positions. The user utilizes gravity to apply pressure between their body and the roller. The user repositions their body to apply pressure to the desired area. The user moves their body back and forth over the roller to provide the rolling motion as the roller rolls against the floor.
Stick rollers as shown in FIGS. 17 and 18 are a second common style of massage roller. They have handles on opposite ends of an axle and contain one or more hollow cylinder segments between the handles that rotate about the axle. They operate similar to a rolling pin used for baking. The user grasps both handles and leans over to apply direct manual pressure of the roller against areas of their body that they can reach. In some cases, the user sits on the floor or on another surface in order to enable them to reach certain areas of their legs.
A wide variety of other specialty rollers are available, but they are currently much less popular than the two main categories of foam roller and stick roller described.
Many users do not like foam rollers because of the need to be on the floor in order to use them. This limits the areas where foam rollers can be used conveniently. They also find that the roller applies either too much pressure or not enough pressure depending on the area of their body and their own body weight. They are not able to control the amount of pressure.
Foam rollers require users to wear tight-fitting clothing in order to avoid tangling their clothes as they roll against the roller and the floor. People that are injured or less physically capable find foam rollers difficult to use because they require significant effort to position and move their body around on the floor and to balance themselves on the roller.
Stick rollers provide improvements over some of the limitations of foam rollers, such as having control over the amount of pressure applied, and avoiding the clothes-tangling problem, but stick rollers have other limiting issues. Users need to bend and twist their bodies in order to be able to reach certain areas of their bodies with the stick roller. It is very difficult and uncomfortable to apply force when bent over or twisted. Users also can't apply enough force with a stick roller, especially when in one of these uncomfortable positions. Users also need to sit on the floor to use the stick roller to reach certain parts of their body. This limits the areas when stick rollers can be used, and requires additional effort for use.
The dual muscle roller describe and claimed herein solves many of the shortcomings of the prior art devices by enabling users to comfortably apply varying amounts of massage pressure against their body. The dual muscle roller can be used while comfortably standing up or sitting down, and requires little to no bending or twisting of the body to reach any area of the user's legs. The dual rollers apply massage to two areas of the user's body at one time, instead of only a single area like the foam roller and stick roller.
The dual muscle roller also enables the user to dynamically vary the amount of pressure applied while rolling. In addition, users are able to apply significantly more pressure than stick rollers due to leverage provided by the position of the lever joint, roller axle, and handle. Because the dual muscle roller is much easier to use while still enabling the user to apply significant massage pressure, users are much more likely to continue using the device when they don't have to struggle with the limitations of a foam roller or stick roller.